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Uman

UMAN Rosh HaShana: A Spiritual Journey

by Ari Serap September 28, 2017

written by Ari Serap

When people hear of Uman Rosh HaShana many different things comes to ones mind such as ״woah why do people leave Israel and go to Uman?” Or “dude Uman is awesome it’s like a Jewish rave.” It’s shocking that I actually went to Uman after hearing all the negative gossip from the various peanut galleries but there is an aspect of Uman that is not televised on the news and written in articles. First of all traveling to Uman for Rosh HaShanah is not an easy journey, it’s a spiritual experience that challenges your emuna (faith) and your gratitude. Besides leaving the comfort of your home and family to travel to celebrate Rosh HaShanah in Uman doesn’t make any sense(if you don’t know why your going) but for a Torah observant Jew that has a strong connection to the teachings of Rebbe Nachman it makes a lot of sense. Anyways the moment you step outside your house with your suitcase ready or in my case a giant camping backpack the obstacles start to begin….. Now I can write down each and every thing that happened to me on my spiritual journey in UMAN during Rosh HaShanah but instead I’m going to share with you one powerful story that has forever changed the way I think.

This story that I am about to share with you is a true story and just happened this past Monday morning when I was at the Kiev airport traveling back to Israel. First of all I almost missed my shuttle to the airport from UMAN because I didn’t hear my alarm and I think I only got like an 1hr30mins worth of sleep that night. Ok but I made it on a later shuttle with my big backpack and a plastic carrying on bag which had my Tefilin and 5 of my Sefarim and my Rabbis book as well, so 6 books total (and all of them are very important, especially my Tefilin.) You might be asking yourself ” well if it was so important why didn’t he put it his big back pack?” Well when I flew to Kiev they made me check my bag and I thought they would make me do it again which they did. Anyways back to the story….. So we we make it to the Kiev international airport where no employee speaks english fluently. We soon found out we were at the wrong terminal and our flight was taking off in about an 2hrs, so we were all over the place trying to figure out how to get to this other terminal.

After a 20min walk in the cold damp land of Ukraine we made it to Terminal B. While we were going through security I realized I didn’t have my plastic carrying on bag which had my Tefilin and books. Once we got through security and passport control I received a text message in Hebrew that someone found my stuff and I was so relieved, but the flight was going to be taking off in about an 1hr and now I had to go back to the other terminal where I just came from. So I went back to the other terminal and it wasn’t there. I checked everywhere. I called the guy who texted me that he found it and he told me that security wouldn’t let him take it through. I think he was trying to bring it to Israel for me. Well anyways it didn’t work and no one had any clue where it was.

Since I was tight on time because I had a flight to catch and was in the wrong terminal I made my way back to my terminal and to my gate to start boarding. The entire flight back to Israel I spoke to G-D. I remember telling him “I know everything happens for a reason and even though I don’t know why this had to happen to me I know everything is going to be okay.”

I was bummed out but I was trying remain positive….. Well yesterday I was trying to figure out how I’m going to afford a new pair of Tefilin because they are not cheap and my Rabbi was telling me try not to worry about it right now, I think he also told me that because for the past 4 days I’ve been under the weather and it’s not so smart to make decisions when you are not feeling good.

Well anyways yesterday I pushed myself to go to work, and while I was at work I received a phone call from an unknown number. I picked up the phone and the man only spoke Hebrew, but I was able to understand what he was saying. Do you know what he told me???? “יש לי תפילין וספרים ” (i have your tefilin and books)…. I was blown away.

This man must of found my stuff in Kiev and brought it back with him to Israel. He lives in a city that’s about 2hrs away from me.

This is what UMAN is about. It’s about hardships, and happiness, faith and gratitude at the exact same time. When hardships happen in our life how are we going to deal with it? When amazing things happen to us will we be grateful? On the surface UMAN looks like a party but it’s actually a doctors appointment for the soul, and everyone need to get a check up once a year.

September 28, 2017 0 comments

Uman, the Engine for the Final Redemption

by David Mark May 3, 2017

written by David Mark

There is a light growing in the world. It is hidden behind the veil of our everyday redundancy, but it is still there none the less. We can feel something happening. A great movement away from the globalist consumerism that has enveloped all of our lives. Smartphones, Internet, Netflix, Amazon, and so on. The globalist elite understand there is something afoot. Something powerful. But they cannot stop it. It started small after the fall of the Soviet Union, bu the awakening promised in the prophets is happening.

In a city in central Ukraine, Rebbe Nachman is buried. He was the great grandson of the Baal Shem Tov and the young leader of the Breslov movement of Chassidus. At 38 he already knew his life would be cut short by tuberculosis and so decided to travel to Uman with his most trusted followers six months before his death. Rebbe Nachman chose Uman early on as his final resting place for a variety of reasons. It was there he said, “A place was prepared for me from the beginning of Creation.”

Rebbe Nachaman taught almost 200 years ago that a flood of G-Dlessness would fill the Earth. This would be the real war, a complete spiritual attack on humanity’s belief in a single active Creator responsible for every moment of our reality. This attack would be on what we call Emunah, the pure faith in the Almighty’s providence with every facet of his creation.

This war has filled our lives. It is the war the globalists who are a manifestation of the husks of the Other Side wage on the common person. Their war is a war built around money, war, and control. They spread disinformation and lies, which lead to depression and sadness. These globalists maybe faceless and hide behind the zeros and ones of the computer screen, but make no mistake they are there.

It is for this war that, which is spiritual in its nature that Rebbe Nachman chose to be buried in Uman. Knowing that the Land of Israel would be the foremost target of the forces of evil at the End of Days, a place outside of their radar was prepared for us to recharge for the fight at hand. Uman is this place.

Uman has always been central to the Jewish experience during the painful exile. It was there Chmielnicki massacred thousands of Jewish men, women, and children. He dumped them in a mass grave on the very hill, Rebbe Nachman chose to be buried on over 150 years later. In 1920, 3000 Jewish inhabitants were murdered by their Ukrainian neighbors, and during World War Two, the Nazis laid waste to the rest. It is within this place of deep darkness Rebbe Nachman chose to fight his war. Why in such a place of great pain? Because the forces of evil have no way of attacking him and his mission there. They can issue decrees only in places of overt light, like the Land of Israel, but in Uman the mission is kept hidden as it prepares to burst open.

My first trip to Uman on Rosh Hoshana was nearly eight years ago. Then there were 35,000 visitors, praying more intensely than anywhere else I had ever seen. There was no inhibition. The same person outside of Uman, even in Israel is trapped by his doubts, fears, and worry, but in Uman I saw my fellow travelers experience freedom. I felt free. This past year the number doubled to 70,000. Rebbe Nachman can be felt everywhere. Singing, dancing, joy, and deep personal prayer can be experienced everywhere. It is this light, that Rebbe Nachman promised he would give us that is so necessary to be brought back to the Land of Israel and spread to throughout the world.

With the above in mind I took my two oldest boys to the Ukraine last week. We visited grave sites of many chassidic leaders and ended our journey in Uman. We prayed and connected and saw that even during the year, on the quietest of days, there are many visitors from around the world. Both religious and non-religious are journeying to Rebbe Nachman to reconnect to themselves. It is said the Tzaddik stands at the center of a great maze. It is this maze each one of us is trapped within, seemingly unable to find the way out. The Tzaddik can see all of our paths and although physically passed from he Earth, it this ability gained from completing the maze himself that gives him the ability to lead each one of us out of our maze.

Rebbe Nachman told his followers “My Light will burn until the coming of the Messiah.” With Putin spreading war into Ukraine and Syria and Iran and Hezbollah poised to strike Israel. While the USA is set to go head to head against North Korea in a nuclear confrontation, there is one place that has the power to lift us beyond the darkness and depression those in “control” have injected us with.

Rebbe Nachman teaches that the light of the true Tzaddik always shines. It is this light, which has the power to open our eyes to the truth of the Creator’s guidance of all of Creation for tha is the role of the Tzaddik, to awaken and guide us.

This light of the true Tzaddik is found, hidden away in Uman, ready for each of us to discover it for ourselves.

May 3, 2017 0 comments

Frontlines Headlines Redemption Watch

[watch] Rebbe Nachman’s Grave Has Been Desecrated, It’s Time To Bring Him To Israel

by David Mark December 21, 2016

written by David Mark

The video below has been circulating the web today. Local Ukrainians threw a pig’s head into the grave of Rebbe Nachman, the great chassidic master, whose tomb serves as a place of pilgramage for thousands every year.

Within Brelsov there have always been various opinions concerning bringing Rebbe Nachman’s grave to Israel. It is known that Rebbe Nachman yearned to be in Israel, but remained in Ukraine after returning from his trip to the holy land over 200 years ago. He did this for an express purpose, one which is very deep.

Could the attack on his grave site, a location which has benefited not only Jewish pilgrims, but the non-Jews living there, be a sign that Rebbe Nachman’s purpose in desiring burial in Uman has ended?

With redemption closing in and Rebbe Nachman’s prediction that his “fire would burn until the coming of Mashiach” actualy materializing as his teachings continue to grow in world wide influence, it seems the time is right to bring him to Israel.

Watch the video below:

Anti Semites desecrated the tomb of Rabbi Nachman of Breslev in Uman.

They left a pigs head and blood all over the area of the tomb area.

Posted by Alan Silver on Tuesday, December 20, 2016

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December 21, 2016 0 comments

Redemption Watch

UNESCO, Uman, and the Final War on Jerusalem

by David Mark October 19, 2016

written by David Mark

It is written in chapter 12 of Zecharia:

1 The burden of the word of the LORD concerning Israel. The saying of the LORD, who stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundation of the earth, and formed the spirit of man within him:
2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of staggering unto all the peoples round about, and upon Judah also shall it fall to be in the siege against Jerusalem.
3 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will make Jerusalem a stone of burden for all the peoples; all that burden themselves with it shall be sore wounded; and all the nations of the earth shall be gathered together against it.

and again in chapter 14:

1 Behold, a day of the LORD cometh, when thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.
2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, but the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
3 Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when He fighteth in the day of battle.
4 And His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleft in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, so that there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.
5 And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azel; yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah; and the LORD my God shall come, and all the holy ones with Thee.

UNESCO has finally gone ahead and used its majority Arab membership to rewrite history and erase the deep and unwavering connection between the Jewish nation and Jerusalem. While it states in the text, which can be read in full here, “Affirming the importance of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls for the three monotheistic religions…” it clearly and unequicably only acknowledges Jerusalem’s Old City as having Palestinian heritage. Instead of viewing the Jewish return to Jerusalem and the national rectification of recieving back that which was stolen from it during theyears of forced Arab occupation as legitimate these regrown Jewish roots are seen through the veil of increased “occupation”.

Being a world body UNESCO has opened the first shot in the world’s war against Jerusalem as prophesized thousands of years ago. Israeli politicians, religous leaders, and acitvists have responded with anger and declarations. Afterall, nearly all Jews that have some sort of connection to the broader national belief set hold a bond that is unbreakable with Jerusalem. Despite the outcry, there is not much on a political level we can do. That in of itself may be the most painful aspect of all.

Rectifying Our Past, Reconnecting Our Future

As someone who considers himself a follower of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, I journeyed to Uman, Ukraine to be by Rebbe Nachman’s grave for Rosh Hoshanah. Rebbe Nachman made it clear that his followers should continue to visit him for Rosh Hoshonah even after his departure from this world. “There is nothing greater that my Rosh Hoshanah,” Rebbe Nachman stated to his followers.

Of all of Rebbe Nachman’s teachings, none is more powerful than his exhortation to spend at least an hour a day in personal solitude in direct conversation with the Almighty. While in Uman I spent most of my time like many others next to Rebbe Nachman’s grave, yet when I wanted to be alone I walked quite a ways from the central area of rebuilt Jewish Uman. Just prior to Rosh Hoshanah I reached a quiet spot overlooking a river flowing out of Uman. It was at this spot I chose to speak to G-d. My hour long session was so meaningful I decided to return near to the same spot the next day, yet chose a different route to get there.

As I approached the area I noticed the color of the earth changed to black beneath my feet and there were broken tombstones all around for as far as I could see. I felt a sense of deep anguish in the area and after my hour long seclusion I located the rebuilt graves of Rebbe Nachman’s grandson and one of his chief students Reb Naftali. Nearby I found a sign noting the area was a the burial place for 3000 Jews slaughtered by the Ukrainians in the pogroms of 1920.

Destroyed Graves of the 3000 Jews Massacred in the Ukranian Pogroms of 1920

Jewish blood flows throughout Uman. From the Chmielnicki massacre of 1648 that saw nearly 30,000 Jews killed in Uman with over 500,000 in the rest of the Ukraine to the pogroms of 1920 to the Nazi exterminations in WW2. Rebbe Nachman stated clearly his ability to rectify the souls of the dead and the torments of the souls lying in Uman were clearly far greater than other places. Yet, I believe Rebbe Nachman has another agenda (one of many) by asking us to return to Uman year in and year out.

In many ways we are the rectification. After he leaves, the Tzaddik (rightous one) has no physical presence in our world, yet he continues to have an impact due to the fullfillment of his lessons and advice by his followers who are called his legs. It is our praying, singing, and dancing in a place of such pain that rectifies the broken souls left in the area.

The Long-Short Path

In the Talmud, tractacte Eruvin it states that Rebbe Yehoshua ben Hanniyah was travelling and saw a child at a fork in the road. He asked the child which way was the best to the city. The child said that one path was a short-long path and the other was a long short-path.

Rebbe Yehoshua ben Hanniyah took the short long path and very quickly came to the outskirts of the city and found that it was surrounded by gardens and orchards. He returned to the child and and said: “My child you said this was the short path.” The child responded to him: “No I said it was the long path.” Rebbe Yehoshua ben Hanniyah then said the following: “I kissed him on his head and I said to him, happy is Israel that all of them are with from the big to the small.”

This passage has tremendous lessons for our time. We the Jewish nation returned in great haste to our ancient homeland. Miracle after miracle has guided us and yet we insist on playing by the rules of the nations of the world. We rushed back so fast we have gotten lost in gardens and orchards of world politics and forgotten the surest way of crossing the proverbial finish line of redemption. The Jewish people wanted to so much to be back in Jerusalem we set out on the short-long path and cannot truly enter our city in a way that feels lasting. We have been forced to return to the fork in the road and take the other path no matter how long it seems it may take.

For me this path is the path of Uman, which by way of complete and pure faith reminds us that we as a nation are above the normtive rules of time and space. We are forever. Our war is not against UNESCO. They are a pawn played by the Almighty in the march towards fullfiling the prophecies laid out thousands of years ago. Our war is with ourselves; with that part of us that forgot what it means to trust in the Almighty and develop an instrinsic faith in G-d as a real active part of our lives, both personal and national.

Rebbe Nachman said many times that a great flood of anti-faith would rage around the world and at the end our war would be about recovering our own faith. By bringing us back to the geographical point where we had such faith that we were willing to die for it, we the Jewish Nation are able to recapture that part of us which was lost along the way.

UNESCO has no power to change the truth. In fact, it is telling that the sons of Ishmael who are supposedly faithful to G-d rely on earthly political constructs to erase our history. If they have stooped that low, we have only to reach inside ourselves to rise past them. That is our task and of course let G-d do the rest.

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October 19, 2016 0 comments